So, hey Missouri. It’s me again. I can call you Missouri, right?

Obviously, there are plenty of people working against anti-choice Republicans to protect abortion access in Missouri, but “anti-choice Republicans in Missouri” is a mouthful, wouldn’t you agree? So I’m going to just call you Missouri for short. I’m sure you don’t mind.

So hey, Missouri: Remember a few months ago—like, literally last November—when Missourians went to the polls and passed a constitutional amendment protecting the right to abortion up to fetal viability? Yeah, that’s a thing that actually happened. The voters of Missouri spoke—shouted, actually—and essentially said: “Hey Missouri? Kindly remove yourselves from our uteruses.”

Remember that? It was a good day.

And now, here you come crawling out of the legislative woodwork like you didn’t just get your ass dragged by democracy. You’re already trying to overturn the will of voters by pushing yet another abortion ban in the waning weeks of your legislative session, which is why I am writing my fourth open letter to you. (Here are my previous letters to you from 2015, 2017, and 2019, which demonstrate that you’ve been on your bullshit for damn near a decade.) So it falls to me to ask you again: Do you need a wellness check? Are you engaging in activities that spark joy? (Besides stripping abortion access from Missourians, which obviously gets you off.) Because I’m concerned.

HJR 73 is a proposed amendment that would wipe out the protections for abortion that Missouri voters added to the state constitution in November. After hours of debate last week, the House passed the bill on April 15. Only one Republican—Missouri House Speaker Jon Patterson—voted against the legislation in its final round, according to the Missouri Independent. (State Rep. Bill Allen joined Patterson’s vote against it in the first House vote on the legislation, the Missouri Independent reported.)

One lawmaker touting the bill, Rep. Brian Seitz, said HJR 73 “will help foster a culture of life in Missouri, one that all our citizens can support.”

To which I say, what?

Citizens already lent their support to an amendment that protects abortion up to the point of fetal viability, which can occur sometime between 24 and 26 weeks of pregnancy, by voting to add that amendment to the Missouri constitution.

But that’s not enough for the state’s Republican majority. Apparently, they think voters must have made a mistake, so they brought a bill to the floor that would prohibit abortion after 12 weeks’ gestation—with exceptions tossed in for medical emergencies and fetal anomalies, as well as rape and incest.

Seitz, who shepherded the bill through committee, is basically arguing that since he believes in a strict abortion ban, a new ban with exceptions would represent some sort of sick “compromise.” That’s because he makes his decisions “from a Biblical worldview,” according to the Missouri Independent.

“I have to understand that others may not,” Seitz told the Missouri Independent. “So pragmatically, how do we, particularly we that profess Christ as savior, how do we justify even the possibility of these exceptions for rape and incest?”

Hey, Brian? Can I call you Brian? I know how you justify it: By shutting the hell up and listening to what Missouri voters told you in November when they voted to pass Amendment 3, which, again, enshrined abortion rights in the Missouri Constitution up to fetal viability.

Remember the viability standard? That’s the same standard we had under Roe v. Wade—remember her? May she rest in precedent.

Fetal viability can occur between 24 and 26 weeks’ gestation, though it is medically variable. That’s what voters wanted. That’s what they voted for. Twenty-four—not 12. Amendment 3 wasn’t some vague, symbolic gesture. It was clear. Concrete. Constitutionally binding. But instead of accepting that you lost the argument—and the vote—you’re trying to pull a legislative mulligan like you’re on a golf course.

This bill isn’t about protecting life. It’s about Republicans exerting control over people capable of becoming pregnant. It’s about punishing people for having sex, punishing survivors for being assaulted, and punishing Missourians for daring to say, “no more.”

The truly insidious part? Republicans are pretending this new ban is actually what Missourians want—that their vote demonstrates they want common sense exceptions in Missouri’s prior ban. Seitz seems to think that voters got confused and accidentally voted for bodily autonomy when what they really wanted was a ban with exceptions. Missouri? You’re out here gaslighting your own constituents like, “Oh no, sweetie, you didn’t mean to support abortion rights. You meant to vote for us to decide for you.”

No. Missouri voters said what they said.

This legislative stunt isn’t just anti-abortion—it’s anti-democracy. When politicians decide the will of the people is optional, that’s not governing. That’s authoritarianism. This latest attempt to ban abortion popped up this month. But would it surprise you that Missouri Republicans thumbed their noses at voters and introduced a flurry of anti-choice bills as soon as the metaphorical opening bell of their legislative session was rung in January of this year? Of course it wouldn’t—even if you didn’t know that Missouri has always been on its bullshit, as I wrote in 2015, 2017, and again in 2019.

This isn’t just a Missouri problem, of course. It’s a national trend. Across the country, Republican lawmakers are trying to chip away at voter-approved protections for abortion rights. They’re changing rules, rewriting language, and pretending constitutional amendments are just suggestions to be relitigated during the very next legislative session.

Republicans in Arizona, Montana, Colorado, and Kentucky are bulldozing ahead with bills that restrict abortion rights, despite voters rejecting efforts to make abortion access in those states more difficult. And in 15 states—including Arizona, Missouri, and Montana—anti-choice Republicans are pushing bills that would make it harder to even get a ballot measure in front of voters—either by raising the threshold for passing ballot measures to 60 percent (rather than 50) or creating burdensome signature collection requirements, according to NBC News.

Basically, anti-choice Republicans in these states want to make sure only their preferred initiatives, which strip access to abortion, see the light of day. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s straight from the authoritarian playbook: When you can’t win fair and square, rewrite the rules. Republicans are so obsessed with controlling pregnant people, they’re willing to bulldoze through the very foundations of democracy to do it.

And let’s not overlook the dazzling hypocrisy on display here. These are the same folks who scream, let the people decide—until the people decide something they don’t like. Then suddenly it’s, we need to protect women and girls from the abortion industry and ballot initiatives are dangerous!

Let’s call this what it is: a coordinated, nationwide campaign to silence voters, erase bodily autonomy, and strip people of their power to effect change through direct democracy.

It’s not just anti-abortion. It’s anti-democracy. And it’s pathetic.

Well, here’s the thing that you anti-choice Missouri Republicans trying to thwart the will of the voters have to come to terms with: Y’all. Already. Lost. Full stop. The Supreme Court overturned Roe three years ago, and in November of last year, Missouri voters put the Roe standard into the state constitution. Your attempts to claw it back with these weaselly, performative bills won’t just fail—they’ll radicalize a whole new wave of voters who are done being played.

So Missouri? You can keep trying to rewrite the rules. But the people already wrote theirs. In ink. On the state constitution.

And if they did it once, they’ll do it again.